Flattery is a lie covered in a bed of flowery words.
Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers.
Flattery is a base coin which is current only through our vanity.
True love is mixed up with birdlike squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, apiece of flattery to the dupe's conceit.
When a woman has not received much flattery in her life, she will be seduced.
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.
Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.
Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.
Gossip involves saying behind a person’s back what you would never say to his or her face. Flattery means saying to a person’s face what you would never say behind his or her back.
The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.
Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocket money at court; where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a currency that it is no longer a fraudulent, but a legal payment.
Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit; the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.
Flattery in courtship is the highest insolence, for whilst it pretends to bestow on you more than you deserve, it is watching an opportunity to take from you what you really have.
The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional.
Of all sorts of flattery, that which comes from a solemn character and stands before a sermon is the worst-complexioned. Such commendation is a satire upon the author, makes the text look mercenary, and disables the discourse from doing service.
Flattery will get you everywhere.
I am an actor and of course I respond very positively to flattery.
The most subtle flattery that a woman can receive is by actions, not by words.